Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version appeared at Project Syndicate.
The US Supreme Court on January 13 blocked President Joe Biden’s attempt to mandate that businesses must require their employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or else wear masks and be tested regularly. This “emergency standard” was to have been applied by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, carrying out its responsibility under long-standing legislation to protect workers facing serious danger in the workplace.
In some countries, governments have imposed vaccine mandates on their entire populations, or at least on all workers. They include Austria, Ecuador, and Indonesia. Germany is currently deciding on a mandate. Many more, like Italy, have imposed the requirement on subsets of the population, such as health workers or those over 50.
But other governments have left the vaccination choice up to the individual, including Denmark and the United Kingdom. In some places, political opposition from segments of the public is as strong as the anti-vax movement in the U.S.
The vaccines work. Unvaccinated people are approximately 15 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than the unvaccinated.
Nevertheless, even among those Americans who accept that the Covid-19 danger is real and that the vaccines are safe and effective, some say that the decision whether to get the shot should be a matter of individual choice. They call government mandates an instance of government overreach. The majority of Supreme Court justices (6-3) reflected this perspective, referring to “a significant encroachment into the lives” of affected workers.
Americans may be unusually prone to invoke freedom for the individual and to praise small government. But a sort of presumption that laissez faire should be the default option in public policy is consistent with textbook economics. Individual decision-making can take care of many matters, following the logic that individuals are the best judge of their own welfare and that when consenting adults engage in a voluntary transaction of some sort, it must be that each benefits.
More specifically, before rushing to government intervention, it is good discipline to identify a particular market failure, that is, a reason why the free market does not give the right answer, the efficient outcome. Usually this is not hard to do. Externalities like pollution are a classic case of a market failure: Others, who are not party to the polluting activity, bear the cost when they breathe the air or drink the water. As a result, the free market will produce too much pollution.
Other categories of market failure include public goods, monopoly power, and inability of the individual to make an informed decision (such as in the case of children). Income distribution is another valid justification for government intervention.
It would be very difficult to get everyone to agree on where to draw the line between examples in which the benefits of government intervention outweigh the costs, and examples in which they do not. But it should be easier to achieve agreement on an ordering of various practical applications according to the strength of the argument for intervention. Such an ordering, in turn, might help people think more clearly about the case of vaccine mandates.
Consider, briefly, 15 policy issues, arrayed in a proposed sequence from the strongest, most widely accepted, case for government intervention, to the weakest.
- Murder is illegal; the law is enforced by the police and criminal justice system. Even diehard libertarians agree that this is as it should be. Law enforcement is a bedrock function of government.
- Individuals cannot possess tactical nuclear weapons. The wisdom of this ban should be obvious.
- We put up traffic lights at busy intersections and back them up with police enforcement. The case for this is stronger (even) than the case for requiring seatbelts, in that a good share of the mortal danger from running a red light falls, not just on the driver, but on others who may be driving on the cross-street. Some might argue that seat belts should be a matter of individual choice, because most of the danger is borne by the driver.
- Coming to the subject of this commentary, I propose that a covid vaccine mandate for all workers (allowing for medical exemptions) should fall approximately at this point in the sequence, at policy #4. Readers are invited to check if they disagree. (Incidentally, if workers are offered an alternative of testing and masking, as in the Biden effort, it is that much harder to cry government overreach.)
- All 50 states require that children be vaccinated against a set of communicable diseases: diphtheria, pertusis (whooping cough), polio, measles, rubella, and chicken pox. Thanks to the vaccines, these six diseases, which used to kill millions, have been virtually eliminated from the United States. Someone who approves of these requirements should also support a Covid-19 vaccine mandate.
- We regulate air pollution, as noted, because it is an externality that impacts the health and well-being of others. Pollution and the communicable diseases are alike in this sense.
- All 50 states also require vaccination for tetanus. Unlike polio and the other communicable diseases, tetanus is not communicated person-to-person. Thus, a purist libertarian might argue that individuals should be able to decide for themselves. But when it comes to children, there is an extra argument for government intervention. (In practice, one gets the tetanus vaccine in combination with the vaccines for diphtheria and whooping cough (pertussis), so no decision is relevant.
- Among the workplace hazards that OSHA regulates are asbestos, coal dust, and other pollutants in the air of the workplace. A true libertarian might argue that workers can choose not to work for employers known to be unhealthy. But workers don’t have full information. The government is better able to evaluate the science. In that respect, it is like dealing with the coronavirus. In both cases, by the way, a further argument for government intervention is that society pays a good share of the cost of an individual’s illness, and did before Obamacare was even on the horizon.
- Government heavily regulates alcoholic beverages, including by high taxation, prohibition on sale to minors, and punishment for drunk driving. (In the US, the details vary from state to state.)
- The same is true for cigarettes, though the costs imposed on bystanders are not as great as for drunk driving. In both cases, society pays a good share of the cost when the partaker falls ill.
- A respect for individual freedom suggests that it would be going too far to ban alcohol (or cigarettes) altogether. For starters, it would be unenforceable, as the US learned under Prohibition (1920-33).
- Similarly, it would be going too far to make gambling illegal. A paternalist would point to the irrationality and addictiveness of gambling. But a total ban is unenforceable. Also, unlike with alcohol, virtually the entire burden of gambling falls on gamblers themselves. There is little or no externality, other than intra-family.
- Government can exercise eminent domain, seizing the private property of landowners. This is a huge encroachment of individual property rights, and yet is common, even in the U.S. Furthermore, many conservatives support eminent domain when it comes to building an oil pipeline.
- Many addictive drugs, like heroin, are illegal. Most people support this, though others argue that it should be a matter of individual choice.
- Let’s conclude with the most illogical of covid-related government policies. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last year made it illegal for cruise lines and other private businesses to require vaccination of customers. What made this law breathtakingly illogical is that belief in private-sector rights should allow a private cruise line to judge for itself that its potential customers, before getting on a ship, want to be assured that their fellow passengers are vaccinated. Consenting adults want to engage in a voluntary transaction. The policy views of the Governor, and others like him, are evidently not based on respect for individual rights, as they claim, but on something else. Presumably not a desire to spread covid. Perhaps, then, these positions are declarations of membership in a particular political tribe.
If one judges that the benefits of government intervention outweigh the costs in the cases of policies 5 through 11, it is likely that one would logically figure the same is true of covid vaccine mandates.
This post written by Jeffrey Frankel.
COVID19 is clearly a negative externalities. NICE discussion
Omicron breaks through the vaccine readily to give light cases and transmission. The major benefits of the vaccine are now reduction in danger to the vaxxed individuals, not to overall transmission. As such, it makes more sense to let people make their own decisions. Those with more risk (e.g. older) may decide differently than those with little risk (e.g. younger). This is very normal in health care to not have one size fits all policies and to allow patient choice.
So if I have COVID-19 I have your permission to drop by your house and infect you and your entire family? Or do you not get what this variant of this virus does in the way of transmission? I bet you never wore a mask either.
certainly!
but i might shoot you other crimes
Not true. People who test positive for Covid are twice as likely to be unvaccinated than vaccinated. Testing positive makes you much more likely to transmit the disease. So even though Omicron is much more likely to be found in vaccinated people they are still less likely to get and transmit Covid compared to unvaccinated. When it comes to hospitalizations and death the difference is about 20-fold. Given the severe effect of Covid hospitalizations on the quality of hospital care for all patients (overstretched and burned out health care providers) the lack of vaccinations can actually kill innocent fully vaccinated victims of accidents and (non-Covid) strokes/heart attacks. As someone said (but appears hard to understand for the sociopathic right wingers) – its not about YOU its about US.
“This is very normal in health care to not have one size fits all policies and to allow patient choice.”
it is very normal to require people to have vaccination against infectious diseases. patient choice is often overridden for public health with infectious diseases. you cannot simply walk around in public while infectious with small pox.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-29/Chinese-mainland-records-59-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-17d3HtNtlwA/index.html
January 29, 2022
Chinese mainland reports 59 new COVID-19 cases
The Chinese mainland recorded 59 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Friday, with 37 linked to local transmissions and 22 from overseas, data from the National Health Commission showed on Saturday.
A total of 32 new asymptomatic cases were also recorded, and 777 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.
Confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland now total 105,934, with the death toll remaining unchanged at 4,636 since January last year.
Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-29/Chinese-mainland-records-59-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-17d3HtNtlwA/img/90724292522947f0b5687bd3f557d891/90724292522947f0b5687bd3f557d891.jpeg
Chinese mainland new imported cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-29/Chinese-mainland-records-59-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-17d3HtNtlwA/img/bcb187c7c3df46e7aa29f177a4620260/bcb187c7c3df46e7aa29f177a4620260.jpeg
Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-29/Chinese-mainland-records-59-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-17d3HtNtlwA/img/b1ee78cdc0e347c3bad13b18c85f4665/b1ee78cdc0e347c3bad13b18c85f4665.jpeg
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/20220129/163cafdd807e4e3db7a60e88ece19002/c.html
January 29, 2022
Almost 3 bln COVID-19 vaccine doses administered on Chinese mainland
BEIJING — Almost 3 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered on the Chinese mainland as of Friday, data from the National Health Commission showed Saturday.
[ January 15, 2022
Over 1.22 billion fully vaccinated against COVID-19 on Chinese mainland
Over 1.22 billion people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 on the Chinese mainland as of Friday, health authorities said on Saturday at a press conference. ]
With World Health Organization approval, Chinese coronavirus vaccines began to be administered on the mainland on an emergency basis in June 2020. General vaccine administration according to infection vulnerability began in December 2020.
About 3 billion doses had been administered as of January 28, 2021, with more than 1.22 billion mainland residents fully vaccinated as of January 15.
Since June 2020, there have been only 2 coronavirus deaths in mainland China. There has been no coronavirus death since January 2021.
Correcting and clarifying dates:
With World Health Organization approval, Chinese coronavirus vaccines began to be administered on the mainland on an emergency basis in June 2020. General vaccine administration, according to infection vulnerability, began in December 2020.
Since June 2020, there have been only 2 coronavirus deaths in mainland China. There has been no coronavirus death since January 2021.
About 3 billion vaccine doses had been administered as of January 28, 2022, with more than 1.22 billion mainland residents fully vaccinated as of January 15, 2022.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
January 28, 2022
Coronavirus
United States
Cases ( 75,271,402)
Deaths ( 905,661)
Deaths per million ( 2,711)
China
Cases ( 105,875)
Deaths ( 4,636)
Deaths per million ( 3)
Jeff,
You are misrepresenting the legal arguments made against Biden’s vaccine mandate. SCOTUS did not overturn the Biden mandate because it thought that vaccination is a matter of individual choice. SCOTUS overturned the mandate because Biden had not statutory authority to impose a Federal vaccine mandate through OSHA regulation.
That vaccines can be mandated is a settled constitutional issue since the 1905 case Jacobson v. Massachusetts. SCOTUS is well-aware of this precedent. If any state wants to pass a covid vaccine mandate, they must get their legislative branch to pass such a law and their governor to sign it; if they do, it will pass constitutional muster. However, the President does not have the constitutional power to do an end run around the democratic process and mandate a vaccine without proper statutory authority merely because he thinks the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the costs. In overturning the Biden mandate. SCOTUS confirmed that we do not live in a Presidential dictatorship.
In your post, you are also misrepresenting other legal issues surrounding vaccine mandates. For example, in point 7 you claim that all 50 states require tetanus vaccines for children. That’s not at all true, and not only for tetanus vaccines. Most states allow religious exemptions from mandatory vaccination of school children. And a number of states will exempt children from mandatory vaccine requirements if they have a “personal conviction” against vaccination. Menzie may be surprised to learn that his own state of Wisconsin has a <a href = "https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/admin_code/dhs/110/144/05" personal conviction exemption in DHS 144.05 for parents who don’t want to vaccinate their children, effectively nullifying the mandate. A number of other states also have personal conviction exemptions, states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, etc.
Jeff, Menzie, and other progressives, if you are up to facing reality (not a good assumption on the evidence so far I know), read these last paragraphs carefully, because I’m going to red pill you now. I knew that SCOTUS would overturn the Biden vaccine mandate, because I’m familiar with the legal issues. You don’t think Biden’s lawyers are familiar with the legal issues as well? You don’t think they told him that his mandate had little chance of surviving SCOTUS review? Of course they did and Biden knew it too. So why did Biden propose a mandate that had little chance of surviving? Because he’s trying to divert responsibility.
Just as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz always could always have gone home whenever she wanted, blue state governors have always had the power to pass covid 19 vaccine mandates. They know it and Biden knows it. So why isn’t Biden calling for states to pass covid 19 vaccine mandates? Biden, ever the crafty politician, knows that politically no state can, not even the bluest of the blue. If Biden called for Massachusetts or California or Wisconsin to pass a Covid-19 vaccine mandate, he would expose the political cowardice of the states’ Democratic governors. So, instead, he proposes a pointless mandate, confident that he can shift the blame to SCOTUS and away from blue state governors.
Jeff, if you really believe that the Covid vaccine should be mandated, why don’t you write an article calling for a covd-19 vaccine mandate in Massachusetts? If Mass passed one, SCOTUS wouldn’t stop it.
Jeff,
You are misrepresenting the legal arguments made against Biden’s vaccine mandate. SCOTUS did not overturn the Biden mandate because it thought that vaccination is a matter of individual choice. SCOTUS overturned the mandate because Biden had not statutory authority to impose a Federal vaccine mandate through OSHA regulation.
That vaccines can be mandated is a settled constitutional issue since the 1905 case Jacobson v. Massachusetts. SCOTUS is well-aware of this precedent. If any state wants to pass a covid vaccine mandate, they must get their legislative branch to pass such a law and their governor to sign it; if they do, it will pass constitutional muster. However, the President does not have the constitutional power to do an end run around the democratic process and mandate a vaccine without proper statutory authority merely because he thinks the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the costs. In overturning the Biden mandate. SCOTUS confirmed that we do not live in a Presidential dictatorship.
In your post, you are also misrepresenting other legal issues surrounding vaccine mandates. For example, in point 7 you claim that all 50 states require tetanus vaccines for children. That’s not at all true, and not only for tetanus vaccines. Most states allow religious exemptions from mandatory vaccination of school children. And a number of states will exempt children from mandatory vaccine requirements if they have a “personal conviction” against vaccination. Menzie may be surprised to learn that his own state of Wisconsin has a <a href = "https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/admin_code/dhs/110/144/05" personal conviction exemption in DHS 144.05 for parents who don’t want to vaccinate their children, effectively nullifying the mandate. A number of other states also have personal conviction exemptions, states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, etc.
Jeff, Menzie, and other progressives, if you are up to facing reality (not a good assumption on the evidence so far I know), read these last paragraphs carefully, because I’m going to red pill you now. I knew that SCOTUS would overturn the Biden vaccine mandate, because I’m familiar with the legal issues. You don’t think Biden’s lawyers are familiar with the legal issues as well? You don’t think they told him that his mandate had little chance of surviving SCOTUS review? Of course they did and Biden knew it too. So why did Biden propose a mandate that had little chance of surviving? Because he’s trying to divert responsibility.
Just as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz always could always have gone home whenever she wanted, blue state governors have always had the power to pass covid 19 vaccine mandates. They know it and Biden knows it. So why isn’t Biden calling for states to pass covid 19 vaccine mandates? Biden, ever the crafty politician, knows that politically no state can, not even the bluest of the blue. If Biden called for Massachusetts or California or Wisconsin to pass a Covid-19 vaccine mandate, he would expose the political cowardice of the states’ Democratic governors. So, instead, he proposes a pointless mandate, confident that he can shift the blame to SCOTUS and away from blue state governors.
Jeff, if you really believe that the Covid vaccine should be mandated, why don’t you write an article calling for a covd-19 vaccine mandate in Massachusetts? If Mass passed one, SCOTUS wouldn’t stop it.
Sorry, link to Wisconsin personal conviction exemption messed up. It’s DHS 144.05 and at https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/admin_code/dhs/110/144/05
“If Biden called for Massachusetts or California or Wisconsin to pass a Covid-19 vaccine mandate, he would expose the political cowardice of the states’ Democratic governors.”
Funny you did not mention my state (New York). Our governor is a Democrat and she has a COVID-19 mandate. Funny thing – your right wing buddies are trying to get the NY courts to overturn it. Now if you have condemned your right wing buddies – forgive me as I have never seen you doing so.
What vaccine mandate does NY state have? Last time I was there, the requirement is that you have to wear a mask indoors, including in restaurants, but masks can be removed when eating and drinking. And in lieu of masks, businesses such as restaurants can instead impose a vaccine requirement for entry, in which case you can go unmasked.
That’s hardly a vaccine mandate. Let’s see the NY governor support a law that says that everyone in the state must be vaccinated or face a fine or even be jailed. Since 1905, she has the power to impose such a mandate.
“Last time I was there, the requirement is that you have to wear a mask indoors, including in restaurants”
Well dude I did mention it was the new governor. When was the last time you were here – when Randy Andy was in charge? Now I get it – you are a lawyer so you are paid to lie.
lockdowns and mandates are far more detrimental to the working, poor and immigrant classes than any dogmatic assertion of benefit from non pharma interventions that prior to 2020 were not recommneded because of benefot reward.
The lower classes are suffering under the neoliberal regimen.
and you all don’t think they see!
A.,
I can see that lockdowns might be “detrimental to the working poor and immigrant classes,” but why are vaxxing or mask mandates detrimental to them? Heck, to the extent they help them not get Covid, they help them.
Rick Stryker SCOTUS overturned the mandate because Biden had not statutory authority to impose a Federal vaccine mandate through OSHA regulation.
My understanding is that SCOTUS partially overturned the employer mandate on the grounds that it was overly broad and should not have been applied to occupations in which there was little “inherent risk” to workers. So the SCOTUS upheld the mandate for hospitals and such where the threat to workers was obvious. To put it another way, we’re supposed to believe that six privileged justices who never worked a day in their lives apparently understand which occupations are more or less inherently risky than OSHA. Really? Talk about judicial overreach.
Rick,
There is another argument for Biden having done what he did, even if he knew SCOTUS would unto it, although I think there was some uncertainty about what SCOTUS would do, your opinion aside. It is that he could get lots of people to get vaxxed, a goof thing, before the rule would get invalidated by SCOTUS. I am sure many are now vaxxed who would not have been otherwise if he had not put that rule for as long as he did.
We have a situationlike this now in my stare, Virginia, where the previous govern. Northam an MD, imposed a vaxx mandate on state university employees, which includes me, as well as a mask mandare on K-12 schools. Both of those have not been undone by the new governor and his AG. As it is, this is not immediately harmful as well over 90% of both employees and students have gotten vaxxes (some special case exemptions were allowed), so it will take awhile for this awful policy move by these newly installed politicians, which are opposed by something like 70% of voters takes effect. I note the new gov ran on a local school board control platgorm, but then almost first thing he did in office was to impose on them a no mask mandate rule, the hypocrite, running for VP I think, so pleasing the looney-bin national Trampscheiss crowd.
the governor of Texas imposed an abortion ban in a similar vein. he knows it is not legal and will be overturned, but his goal was to invoke the rule at least for a while. but he did his action for political gain, not public health.
This is not a political issue in the Constitutional sense. It is a political issue in the nonsense sense. For many years ignorant and uneducated people relied on educated and informed people for their opinions and knowledge. Granted, most businessmen and politicians took advantage of this and lied and cheated for personal gain and power. Today, thanks to the internet, everyone is an “expert” and opinions can be exchanged between ignorant people which lends an aura of authority to the most ludicrous opinions. A Playboy bunny switched from being famous for her exposed breast to being famous for making outrageous claims about vaccines and autism. It’s been downhill since.
You can’t stop people from having opinions but you should certainly stop them from speaking about them out loud!
You know why I really love Jeffrey Frankel?? Well first because I suspect that last name means he’s one of “God’s Chosen People” which always puts that person ahead in my mind. (If my assumption is wrong, I wish Jeffrey would correct me here)
BUt another reason I like Jeffrey Frankel so very much, is, he states things in a way that’s easily understandable to idiots like me, and I imagine, in my mind’s eye, him being this way with his graduate students, making sure they “got” everything (Like I need) but Menzie could take the most complex physics equations Professor Frankel handed to him, but still Professor Frankel gave Menzie teaching like he was talking to idiot Uncle Moses, That’s why I feel an affection to Professor Frankel.
Really, you love him because he validates your opinions, which are not Truth (See Plato on opinion).
Hahaha, I have no mood to argue at this moment, fair enough, whatever you said, : )
Dr. Frankel’s discussion was well reasoned and all you got is to suggest what he wrote is “not Truth”. Pray tell where he got even one thing wrong. Oh you can’t. Never mind.
I could say Brooklyn got a lot of snow today but T. Shaw would call that nothing more than my “opinion”. Of course he did not have to shovel my side walk.
Rick Stryker: ” However, the President does not have the constitutional power to do an end run around the democratic process and mandate a vaccine without proper statutory authority merely because he thinks the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the costs. In overturning the Biden mandate. SCOTUS confirmed that we do not live in a Presidential dictatorship.”
Curiously, the very same Supreme Court ruled that Trump could do an end run around the democratic process and and mandate the use of military funding to build his wall, defying the will of Congress even though Congress had voted against that very same funding. It seems that some “constitutional powers” and “national emergencies” are more equal than others, apparently affirming we do live in a Presidential dictatorship for Presidents of a certain persuasion.
Even curiouser, the court’s reasoning was that “COVID-19 at the workplace is not a work-related danger for most workplaces.” This being the very same Supreme Court that handled cases by remote conference for the last two years because of COVID-19 work-related danger.
Rick reminds me of why I hate lawyers. Dr. Frankel was not making a Constitutional argument but rather an economic argument. OK Rick is not only a porn star but his day job seems to be some big short Federalist jurist. Of course people are dying because the Federalist have allowed irresponsible governors such as that clown in Florida run rough shod of sensible policy. As some would say “It is Perfectly Legal”. Gag!
Jeff was making a legal argument implicitly when he said SCOTUS, motivated by laissez faire sympathies, struck down the mandate. No, that was not the reason. He was also misstating the legal status of vaccine mandates for school children.
Lawyers have to always have the last word – no matter how absurd.
“Jeff was making a legal argument implicitly when he said SCOTUS”
Implicitly! It’s pretty rich that you choose to misrepresent what Dr. Frankel was saying as you accuse him of misrepresentation. Your intellectual garbage is precisely the reason most reasonable people hate lawyers.
Sometimes you go by Rick Stryker and other times you go by Rick s. Hey Rick – did you get disbarred in NY or what? Next post why not go by Rudy G!
Joseph,
The Trump and Biden cases are not analogous. In Trump’s case, the court ruled that the Sierra Club did not have standing to bring a case that involved a dispute between the executive branch and the legislative branch on whether Trump could legally spend money not specifically allocated by Congress; SCOTUS did not rule that Trump’s actions were legitimate. It’s a fundamental legal principle that you can’t sue if you don’t have standing. That rule of law has benefited Presidents of both parties. For example, when former ICE officers as well as the Sheriff of Arizona sued Obama over his DACA program, those suits were rejected since ICE officers and the sheriff didn’t have standing. Similarly, when Obama decided to delay the enforcement of the employer mandate in clear violation of the language of the ACA, Republicans didn’t know how to stop him since it was not clear who would have standing to sue Obama. What Obama did was technically illegal but there was no legal mechanism to stop him.
You also misunderstand the Court’s reasoning on the Biden mandate. OSHA is supposed to regulate workplace hazards. A workplace hazard is a risk that you face while at the workplace but don’t face when you are not there. A workplace hazard is NOT a risk that you face everywhere, including the workplace. The Court was pointing out that OSHA cannot apply to Covid risk because Covid risk is not a workplace risk. General health and safety risks can and are managed by other means than OSHA regulations: any state for example could pass a law mandating the Covid 19 vaccine for all residents and that law would be constitutional. None of this means that workplaces can’t develop rules to manage general health and safety risks, as SCOTUS and other workplaces did. But rules can’t be mandated under OSHA.
Standing to sue? Wow – you are the typical slime ball attorney after all.
joseph Agreed. I’ll go even further. OSHA’s directive only applied to employers with over 100 workers, not individuals. People forget that. They also forget that the OSHA mandate did in fact allow for exceptions. An employee had the option of taking a regular test if he or she didn’t want to be vaccinated. So by striking down the OSHA mandate, not only did the SCOTUS strike down an employer mandate with respect to vaccinations, but it also struck down an employer mandate with respect to testing. Now what do you think the odds are that this same Supreme Court would strike down a government mandate regarding drug testing? I think we know the answer to that one. The SCOTUS Gang-of-Six is all-in when it comes to mandates that conservatives like, but will perform extreme intellectual gymnastics to overturn mandates that conservatives don’t like.
I am not an “anti-vaxxer”; my wife and I have had the Moderna vaccinations. But some people have health conditions that should preclude these vaccination because these conditions such as heart and lung diseases and blood clotting issues can be exacerbated by the vaccines. Supposedly, there are exemptions available, but in reality it is difficult to obtain them, especially if you work for any agency of the federal government and many corporations. Additionally, some states and countries require “vaccination passports” to conduct normal living activities.
There is a level of hysteria regarding COVID that we should have learned by now is not warranted, especially among the youngest demographic. The problem is that debate has been squelched and any other perspective is deemed “unscientific” or “right wing”. Senator Johnson of Wisconsin just held an open hearing at the U.S. Senate to allow other voices to be heard. Many of these were highly credentialed and long-practicing medical professionals. But the name Sen. Johnson immediately invoked ad hominem remarks and snide, snarky comments with the result that any other perspectives were deemed “nutcases”.
I think what was trying to be pointed out was that, normally, treatments at various stages of an infection will vary. For example, anti-virals are most effective when used early on although they can help to a lesser degree once a viral infection has spread throughout a person. It’s sort of like saying you can treat a cut early with topical antiseptics, but if you don’t you may have to treat it with antibiotics and if you don’t you may have to treat it with surgery or amputation. When you get to the last stage, topical antiseptics don’t work.
The U.S. government invested heavily in a strategy of interdiction… vaccinations. They have been quite effective at reducing the severity of COVID infections, but not necessarily preventing infection or transmission. Strangely, the same government has been highly resistant to outside efforts at early treatment, even those treatments that other countries have found to be at least somewhat effective. Given that resistance, the official protocol has been to watch and wait and if you get really sick to go to the hospital where you will receive more intensive care and treatments such as monoclonal anti-bodies (which have now been discontinued as less effective against the Omicron variant… as have the original vaccines that are now still being offered in the form of “boosters”). If those more intensive treatments don’t work, you may end up on a ventilator or dead.
Some people like my brother and myself have received little or no protection from the vaccines and are waiting for injectable monoclonal antibodies that claim a 70% success in stopping COVID. While this is “better than nothing”, it is not much more effective than the annual flu shot which may or may not prevent a person from getting ill from the flu viruses.
Perhaps these reasons are why these “nutcase” doctors attending Sen. Johnson’s recent panel have been so intent on finding alternative treatments at the “just got cut” stage rather than waiting for the “antibiotics” stage or the “amputation” stage. It’s normal medical protocol to try to treat a disease as early as possible if the risk of leading to serious illness or death is there. Doctors have always used their judgment about when and how to treat based on a variety of perspectives. That’s also why so many “off label” uses of medications have been tried and some grown into wide acceptance without official FDA or CDC clinical testing. Empirically, they work. Yet these doctors are being censured and ridiculed for attempting to provide early stage treatment with “unapproved” approaches just for COVID. Given that process, we would not have off label use of medications for diseases that have not been clinically tested.
Will all or any of these “unapproved” approaches work? Hard to say. There are a lot of anecdotal reports showing that they do, but the problem with anecdotal is that you can find another story that contradicts it. So should they be banned? Given the alternative of vaccinations (attempted prevention) followed by hospitalizations (surgery/amputation phase), I’d say that though the alternative may or may not be effective, as long as they don’t cause harm, patients and doctors should be allowed to try them without government interference. Medicine is science, but it is also an art based on experience. Someone postulates that the nature of a drug is such that it might have healing powers for something for which it was not originally designed. The brave ones try it and if it works they continue trying it. If it doesn’t work, they abandon the idea.
More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drugs_known_for_off-label_use
Recently, I sent my niece in Tennessee who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis this article: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/940154 Yes, that’s the same drug that was described as far too dangerous to try for treatment of COVID. Someone with medical experience connected the dots that no one else was seeing.
Bruce,
Oh gag, this is just a pile of lying garbage.
No, Covid vaxxes are not a problem for people with heart problems. You are lying, garbage.
And I am sorry if you and you and your brother are having some kind of problems, but monoclonal antibodies do not work for the omicron variant of Covid. If that is what you have and are somehow desperate to get them, well, might as well get some bleach, which will be about as good.
I think Bruce actually believes his incessant garbage. That is what one gets when one is stupid enough to see Tucker Carlson as a reliable source.
“There is a level of hysteria regarding COVID that we should have learned by now is not warranted, especially among the youngest demographic. The problem is that debate has been squelched and any other perspective is deemed “unscientific” or “right wing”. Senator Johnson of Wisconsin just held an open hearing at the U.S. Senate to allow other voices to be heard.”
This is why any reasonable person should find your babble beyond disgusting. Trying to avoid massive number of needless deaths is hysteria? BTW – young people are dying from this virus. Anbdn yet you continue with your lies that they do not. No one is censoring reasonable discussions but people like RonJon are lying. You are too. So stop with your pathetic long winded rants. You are and have always been as dishonest as Tucker Carlson.
“as long as they don’t cause harm, patients and doctors should be allowed to try them without government interference.”
let them try the alternatives. but don’t let them go to the hospital and have costs covered by the government if they do not work. let the free market determine what is a good alternative treatment, and let’s not pay for the failed attempts.
Sarah Palin comes to my state with no vaccine and decides to dine in a restaurant even though she like had COVID-19
https://news.yahoo.com/york-restaurant-apologises-allowing-sarah-165638990.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
Of course Rick Stryker will defend her right to make sure us liberals in New York get sick and die. MAGA!
Sarah Palin did nothing wrong. She did not go to a restaurant knowing she had Covid. Moreover, she already had Covid in March of 2021 so her immune status is at least as good as people who have been fully vaccinated. Thus, by going to a restaurant in NYC recently,she did not put anyone in any danger that is greater than someone who is fully vaccinated would have. When you go into a NYC restaurant fully vaccinated, you pose the same risk as Sarah Palin did who already had Covid. Like people who have been fully vaccinated and people who previously had Covid, she suffered a breakthrough infection.
I’ve been to plenty of restaurants in NYC over the past months and I can tell you that many don’t really check very hard, despite the so-called mandate. Since you live there, I’m sure you know that.
Leave it to you to defend Momma Grizzle Bear’s incredible irresponsibility. I hope you are well paid for this legal prostitution.
“I’ve been to plenty of restaurants in NYC over the past months and I can tell you that many don’t really check very hard”
Gee Rick – did you just admit you ate at NYC restaurants without getting the vaccine? I bet you did not even wear a mask while you coughed in the waiter’s face. Rick – do me a favor. Stay out of my city. DAMN!
No, I’m triple vaxxed. I’m just saying that early on restaurants took the requirements seriously asking for ID and the vaxx card. Then as time went on, they got lax about it.
Why is NYC your city? Anything you’ve done in NYC, I’ve also done there.
I bow down to the big shot lying lawyer. I guess your real name is Rudy G!
“She did not go to a restaurant knowing she had Covid.”
this is flagrantly false. you usually pay more attention to your comments. she tested positive and then went to a restaurant.
Stryker: “A workplace hazard is a risk that you face while at the workplace but don’t face when you are not there. A workplace hazard is NOT a risk that you face everywhere, including the workplace.”
You, and the court, sound like five-year-olds in your ridiculous arguments. According to your argument, OSHA can’t have rules for ladder safety because people fall off ladders at home. Not a workplace-only hazard. OSHA can’t have rules for steel-toed shoes because people drop things on their feet at home. Not a workplace-only hazard. OSHA can’t have rules for cleaning chemicals because people use the same chemicals cleaning their own homes. Not a workplace-only hazard. Do you realize how juvenile you sound? The Roberts court is a joke.
Joseph,
It seems you missed the simple point that OSHA rules cover very specific risks, not generalized risks. OSHA rules don’t require all workers to wear protective footwear. Most workers do not have to wear them. OSHA rules require specific workers to wear protective footwear on specific job sites, such as certain construction or manufacturing sites, in which there are specific risks of foot injuries connected to the specific job. People don’t need to wear steel-tipped boots to go the supermarket, to go to church, or to go to a baseball game. And you live in a strange house if you need to wear steel-tipped boots there. The same is true for the other risks you mention.
As usual, you are being ridiculous.
Stryker: “It seems you missed the simple point that OSHA rules cover very specific risks, not generalized risks.”
Now you are just making stuff up. Perhaps you could cite the law about the distinction between “specific” vs “generalized” risks.
Covid is not a specific risk? Seems pretty specific if the co-worker you are required to spend 8 hours a day with is giving you Covid which could kill you.
Falling from ladders is a generalized risk? Seems that lots of people generally use ladders. I’ve even got a step stool in my kitchen. So OSHA has no business regulating ladders on the job, according to you?
Do you just pull this stuff out of your .. hat?
You should know by now that I never pull anything out of my hat. Since you are too lazy to check the facts for yourself, here are the OSHA requirements for foot protection. 1910.136(a) reads:
“General requirements. The employer shall ensure that each affected employee uses protective footwear when working in areas where there is a danger of foot injuries due to falling or rolling objects, or objects piercing the sole, or when the use of protective footwear will protect the affected employee from an electrical hazard, such as a static-discharge or electric-shock hazard, that remains after the employer takes other necessary protective measures.”
As I’ve already pointed out to you, OSHA requirements for foot protection do not extend to every worker or workplace. They apply to “affected” workers “when working in areas” that have specific risks that are not generally present in most workplaces and certainly not generally present outside of the workplace.
You really are ridiculous.
Rick Stryker Did you notice that your examples implicitly accept OSHA’s expertise in what constitutes the kind of risk that requires an employer mandate? My problem with the SCOTUS ruling is that the justices apparently believe that they are not only experts on constitutional law, but workplace safety as well. Each discipline has its area of expertise. SCOTUS should have recognized that it was out of its depth when it comes to deciding what constitutes an inherent occupational risk. They should have deferred to OSHA’s expertise. These six justices seem to believe that they are all-knowing gods with expertise in every aspect of everyday life all the while living in a cocoon of privilege.
Word of advice – arguing with a lawyer is worse than arguing with a troll. They get paid by the word.
“Stryker: “Sarah Palin did nothing wrong … she already had Covid in March of 2021 so her immune status is at least as good as people who have been fully vaccinated.”
For someone who claims to be a stickler for the law, you can’t just make up your own rules. There is no “already had Covid” exception to the mandate. The mandate requires one to be fully vaccinated — full stop.
Stryker: “When you go into a NYC restaurant fully vaccinated, you pose the same risk as Sarah Palin did who already had Covid.”
There have been many studies showing that previous infection provides much less immunity than vaccination. That is a fact. You are spouting stupid Joe Rogan “natural immunity” BS. But regardless, you don’t get to make up your own rules. Palin blatantly violated the mandate because she is a sociopathic narcissist who simply doesn’t care about anyone else.
And worse, after knowing she is infected, she goes back to the same restaurant, unmasked but outdoors, instead of quarantining as recommended by the CDC. She’s a monster. She doesn’t care about the safety of her servers. Just your sort of person.
Yes, Palin went to a restaurant in NYC and when they didn’t ask for her vaccine card and ID, she didn’t produce it. (Interesting that the Dems want you to show an ID card to eat in a restaurant but you don’t have to show one to vote!) In doing so, she has joined thousands of NYers who are doing exactly the same. As I mentioned to pg13, I’ve been to plenty of restaurants in NYC in the last few months and enforcement of the vaccine card is pretty lax. I’ve yet to see anyone say, “wait, let me show you my card” when no one at the restaurant was asking. Many restaurants aren’t asking because they need the business. And if you go into such a restaurant that’s not asking, you know what you are getting into. The point though is that the restaurant’s failure to enforce the vaccine requirement on Palin threatened no one, since Palin already had natural immunity. Outdoors, Palin posed very little threat to anyone even if testing positive.
You are obviously not familiar with the latest research on natural immunity. See here or here or here for just a few examples of current research on the efficacy of natural immunity. There is actually a large literature showing this efficacy but I linked to just a few papers to get you started. You really shouldn’t get your immunology research from the NY Times. It’s always best to go right to the scientific literature.
Rick,
Your studies are all ridiculously out of date, and two of them were un-refereed preprints. What a joke.
More recent data shows natural immunity to be not only not lasting all that long but much weaker than protection from vaccines.
The RICK pulls this intellectual garbage a lot. Of course as a big shot attorney he thinks is so much smarter and better than the rest of us that he has every right to flat out lie. That is what many lawyers do.
“There is actually a large literature showing this efficacy but I linked to just a few papers to get you started. You really shouldn’t get your immunology research from the NY Times.”
A large literature that Rick flat out lies about. Yea – two of his chosen three were not peer reviewed and the other is from early 2021. Recent? Rick does consider the rest of us as so incredibly stupid that he has the “moral duty” to lie to us over and over.
“Many restaurants aren’t asking because they need the business.”
Some of us in NYC refuse to eat in any establishment that is this cavalier. Your right to have pizza pales in comparison to my right to avoid getting the virus self centered clowns like you and Sarah Palin. BTW – that you continue to repeat your lie about natural immunity only goes to show what an arrogant and corrupt lawyer you are.
“The point though is that the restaurant’s failure to enforce the vaccine requirement on Palin threatened no one, since Palin already had natural immunity. Outdoors, Palin posed very little threat to anyone even if testing positive.”
Outdoors? Excuse me serial liar but go back and check the date of the link I provided. January 25, 2022 noting this incident occurred on the previous Saturday night. It was brutally cold then. The story never said she dined outdoors because she didn’t.
Now you may think you can get away with blatantly lying to the rest of us. But trust me Mr. Big Shot Lawyer – you are not half as smart as you fancy yourself to be. But you do lie a whole lot!
“Interesting that the Dems want you to show an ID card to eat in a restaurant but you don’t have to show one to vote!”
interestingly, the constitution explicitly gives me the right to vote without requiring an ID card. I looked throughout the constitution, but it never mentioned anything about eating in a restaurant, with or without an ID card.
Well said. The RICK needs to read this over and over again:
There is no “already had Covid” exception to the mandate. The mandate requires one to be fully vaccinated — full stop.
NY does have a mandate but the RICK claims we do not. How do can you tell when a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving.
‘You are spouting stupid Joe Rogan “natural immunity”’
Well the RICK may just be Joe Rogan’s lawyer. His kind of client.
Speaking of mandates … do you remember that Washington State trooper who became a Fox News and internet sensation when he videoed himself in his patrol car telling Governor Jay Inslee to “kiss my ass” the day he quit his job over the state vaccine mandate?
Well, it ended yesterday exactly as you might expect. What an unnecessary waste. If he had listened to Inslee he would still be alive and his four children would still have a father.
And there’s no telling how many other people he took with him when he used his instant celebrity to convince others to remain unvaccinated.
I remember. Inslee and the Dems in Washington state mistreated Trooper Lemay horribly. All during Covid, Inslee required troopers like Lemay to work in public in close contact with people when there was no vaccine and no treatments. He was an essential worker who risked his life while the laptop class in Seattle worked from home in safety. Lemay could have contracted Covid and died easily during that time. But he did his job without complaining.
Then Inslee put in the vaccine mandate. Lemay, a Christian, filed a religious exemption. Lemay and his family don’t take any vaccines, flu or otherwise. But his religious exemption was rejected because the state said they couldn’t find him another job that would accomodate his religious exemption. So they threw him away instead–the chief bread winner of a family of four–after no doubt calling people like him a “hero” a year earlier. Yes, Trooper Lemay was angry at what Inslee had done and had a right to be. And now progressives chortle over his death. So disgusting.
“Inslee and the Dems in Washington state mistreated Trooper Lemay horribly.”
You are Lemay’s lawyer too? Figures you would make money representing the lowest scum on earth. Gee you should have been a lawyer back in the 1940’s representing Hitler and his gang!
“Lemay, a Christian, filed a religious exemption. Lemay and his family don’t take any vaccines, flu or otherwise.”
I grew up with a Methodist father and a Baptist mother. Both got the need for vaccines. Now there might be some weird cult religion that disagrees but then some cult religions believe that the dad has the right to have sex with his own kids. Is this your client base big shot attorney THE RICK?
https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-state-trooper-quits-vaccine-mandate-jay-inslee
I hate to rely on the liars at Faux News but could you get your client’s name right? Robert LaMay not Trooper LeMay. But the notion he was fired is … how to I say this … A LIE. He could have taken retraining and take another position. Oh he might have to take a pay cut. Boo hoo, let him infect the citizens of Washington so he can keep a high paying job. Yes – these are your type of incredibly self centered clients!
When did I say he was fired? I said they treated him very badly and they did. They did to Lemay what every sleazy employer does who wants someone to leave but they can’t fire him: they put the employee in very bad situation so that he will be forced to quit on his own.
I think it was foolish of Lemay not to take the vaccine. I don’t agree with his religious beliefs. However, I don’t think Washington state and Inslee in particular should have treated him the way they did.
Still cannot properly spell your client’s name! Treating him badly? That is Trumps go to line
“So they threw him away instead–the chief bread winner of a family of four”
no rick. he made a choice and must live (and die) with the consequences of that choice.
” And now progressives chortle over his death. So disgusting.”
again, no rick. there is no chortle over this by progressives. I find it sad and concerning that so many conservatives are making such poor choices, that impact not only their own lives but those lives around them. I simply wish they better understood their actions impact, negatively, the people around them. they could make far better decisions.
301 out of 458 police officers who died in 2021 died of Covid. All of them died after vaccines were made available to first responders. They chose death. Such a waste.
Police demand body armor, automatic weapons, tasers, and armored vehicles because they claim their job is so dangerous. But for the number one actual cause of death, by far, they won’t take a vaccine.
And it’s not just their own lives. They are in close contact with the public daily. They could end up killing others through infection but some don’t seem to care. Protect and Serve? Some even refuse to wear a mask.
For example the troopers in Oregon, when asked to put on their masks in a coffee shop said “F…k [Governor] Kate Brown.”
340 members of NYFD died on 9/11 because Mayor Rudy G. was too cheap to give them working radios. Which is why New York’s heroes have always hated this clown. Of course Rick Stryker is the kind of lawyer who worships in the alter of Rudy G. MAGA!
So you know somehow that all of the 301 officers who died of covid were unvaccinated? How do you know that? Or did you just make that up, like you make everything up?
You accusing someone of making stuff up? I guess you reserve the sole right to make stuff up as the vast majority of your comments are flat out lies. But hey – you are the big shot fancy lawyer so it is what you do.
Stryker: “Inslee and the Dems in Washington state mistreated Trooper Lemay horribly … Lemay, a Christian, filed a religious exemption. Lemay and his family don’t take any vaccines, flu or otherwise. But his religious exemption was rejected because the state said they couldn’t find him another job that would accomodate his religious exemption.”
Once again Stryker lies to you. Lemay was given a religious exemption, but that exemption meant that he was no longer medically fit for the job of a public patrolman. He was offered an office position where he would not have daily contact with the public. He refused the offer.
Requirements for fitness for duty change over time according to conditions. When conditions change, one must be prepared to change with them or step aside.
Agreed but the trooper’s name is Robert Lamay.
“Once again Stryker lies to you. Lemay was given a religious exemption, but that exemption meant that he was no longer medically fit for the job of a public patrolman. He was offered an office position where he would not have daily contact with the public. He refused the offer.”
Listen to your entitled self, Joseph. When there was no vaccine and no treatments over 2020, Lemay was deemed medically fit to go out and risk his life interacting with the public while progressives were allowed to work at home in safety. He didn’t get to work from home.
Inslee and the progressives in Washington horribly mistreated Lemay. Here’s what they told him: Sorry, but there are only a few jobs you can do with your religious exemption. You don’t get to choose. You will have to be retrained so that your decades of experience in law enforcement will go down the drain. You will have to pull your kids out of school and incur the cost of moving across the state. And you will make a lot less money.
That’s what a sleazy employer does when they want someone to leave but they can’t fire him directly. They give the employee a very unpalatable option so that he is forced to quit on his own. Washington has anti-discrimination laws based on religion so they couldn’t just fire him with his religious exemption. So instead they gave him an option he couldn’t take. And they did it on purpose. Lemay’s going to move his family across the state to drive the library truck for much less money? That’s your idea of treating him fairly, Joseph?
Obviously Lemay’s only real option was to attempt to find work in the private sector in which he could be paid for his law enforcement experience.
“When there was no vaccine and no treatments over 2020, Lemay was deemed medically fit to go out and risk his life interacting with the public while progressives were allowed to work at home in safety. He didn’t get to work from home.”
My friends in the NYPD want to say to this whining – eff you Mr. Big Shot lawyer. They did their job from day one in the city that got rocked first and hardest. And they had no issues with taking the vaccine.
Hey Rick – you might want to avoid NYC in the future as the word is out that you are not be trusted here. We would not want citizens here to “treat you badly”
Menzie didn’t like my criticism of the government’s narrowly focused interdiction efforts against the COVID virus… vaccinations…. so he refused to publish my comment arguing that early treatments have been ignored or suppressed. Well, Menzie, here is an article from The New York Times last September arguing just that..
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/health/covid-drugs-antivirals.html
Tell me, what has been the economic impact of that failure?
Bruce Hall: Well, it’s not that it’s refused – it’s because you’re in a pile of 28 other comments waiting for moderation. So expect (possibly an edited) comment to post sometime today (I do have a day job, and a teacher’s work is never finished).
You know, I think I’ve been remarkably tolerant of comments from people who have in the past written or linked to clearly wrong stuff (you *do* remember “Worst Statistical Analysis I Have Seen This Year” I hope) – I mean stuff that 10 nanoseconds inspection would convince the 50-IQ crowd something was amiss. So I hope you will be understanding if I am inspecting some comments emanating from some individuals more than others.
“early treatments have been ignored or suppressed”
What was suppressed Bruce? The use of things like bleach? How has that been working for you. Now more serious members of the biopharma community like Gilead were trying to develop treatments. At best – they have produced only limited number of doses and some of them do not help against Omicron.
Now maybe one of your attempts to spread disinformation did not read this comment section but come on – you have put forward so many lies, it would make Trump’s head spin.
pgl,
The use of things like bleach? You still using that canard? Wrong then; wrong now. But to put your mind at ease, many of us who did not have many antibodies generated (from two Moderna shots). do use other means… including “bleach”. Two weeks ago, for example, my wife and I were exposed to active COVID infections from her sisters who spent four hours with us, indoors, at a kitchen table. It is our practice to nebulize (look it up) with an 0.1% solution of hydrogen peroxide in a normal saline solution whenever we go out in public or are with anyone, even family, who has been potentially exposed. It takes ten minutes and is known to kill all viruses in the nasal cavity where COVID infections take hold. One of the sisters began nebulizing immediately when she felt symptoms and was confirmed to have COVID. The other sister did not. The sister who used the “bleach” treatment every 2 hours felt better in two days. The sister who waited until she really felt bad, still feels bad. “Bleach” has been used in medicine for over a century. It just has to be used correctly. Certainly some idiot who swallows a 35% solution of H2O2 will either die or be significantly maimed. If that’s your target of ridicule, go ahead. But I don’t know anyone who has tried that or proposed that.
That’s the lesson of early treatment. That’s what the government policy of stay home and isolate without early treatment until you either recover or have to go to the hospital is medically indefensible. That’s how people ended up dying in the hospitals. That’s why the economic cost of not focusing on early treatment has been so costly. You can treat a cut with antiseptic or wait to treat an infected cut with antibiotics or wait and treat a septic limb with amputation. Oh, the government says wait, so we have to wait.
Since you don’t have my original comment (submitted quite awhile ago and before many that are appearing now), perhaps you should read the NYTimes article that make a similar objection to the strategy employed by the federal government. When you do get to read my comment, you’ll note the section about snide and smarmy remarks aimed at those with other perspectives. Hint: it’s a juvenile tactic.
Bruce,
You are a worthless and idiotic liar. Sorry, but no, hydrogen peroxide does not kill “all viruses” as you claimed above in bolded script. It kills many, but not all. Can you stop lying here?
Barkley, do you only read phrases out of a sentence?
“…is known to kill all viruses in the nasal cavity where COVID infections take hold”.
It doesn’t kill them in the lungs or heart or liver or kidneys or brain or intestines. But the nasal cavity offers a particular opportunity to kill viruses when they first attack one’s body. By converting the liquid H2O2 to a fine mist through a nebulizer (commonly used for people with COPD), the H2O2 can and does kill all such airborne viruses.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7262503/
I certainly would not recommend using 3% H2O2 purchased over the counter because it contains stabilizers and contaminants. But a 12% food grade H2O2 diluted to 0.1% in an 0.9% normal saline solution is safe and effective and can be used multiple times during the day when first exposed as an early treatment which is the central point of my comments.
Have a good day, Pony Soldier.
Bruce Hall: And here I thought “hypothesis” was something to be evaluated.
Menzie, nebulizing with H202 is not a new idea. It has been used in the past on other viruses through nebulizing using a mask to breath in through the nose or in the case of this link, to kill persistent viruses on surfaces.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27384526/
It’s not a perfect solution for early treatment, but in the absence of good alternatives….
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fda-poised-stop-monoclonal-antibody-194618848.html
… it is a process that is easily done at home after any public outing where the potential of becoming exposed to COVID is present.
I just don’t understand the virulent (pun) objection to the development of early treatment protocols by the government or certain individuals. It’s as if developing such protocols is an admission that vaccines don’t work 100% of the time… and they don’t. So, it’s necessary to ridicule and penalize any effort in that direction unless it is under the auspices of Pfizer or Merck or AstraZeneca or….
Bruce Hall
January 31, 2022 at 11:47 am
Did you notice how this snake oil sales person endorse this treatment, then deny he is endorsing it, and then goes back to pushing his snake oil. Slippery one that Bruce Hall.
You are either dumber than a rock or your real name is Tucker Carlson. If you value your wife – get a real doctor. Damn!
I thought Bruce Hall was lying when he claimed potentially effective treatments such as remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies were suppressed so I found a work around the NYTimes screen. Here is what the story really said. I get it – Bruce was peddling junk science such as malaria drugs and hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine so he is still ticked off that NIH did not help fleece the rest of us:
Nearly a year into the coronavirus pandemic, as thousands of patients are dying every day in the United States and widespread vaccination is still months away, doctors have precious few drugs to fight the virus. A handful of therapies — remdesivir, monoclonal antibodies and the steroid dexamethasone — have improved the care of COVID patients, putting doctors in a better position than they were when the virus surged last spring. But these drugs are not cure-alls and are not for everyone, and efforts to repurpose other drugs or discover new ones have not had much success. The government poured $18.5 billion into vaccines, a strategy that resulted in at least five effective products at record-shattering speed. But its investment in drugs was far smaller, about $8.2 billion, most of which went to just a few candidates, such as monoclonal antibodies. Studies of other drugs were poorly organized. The result was that many promising drugs that could stop the disease early, called antivirals, were neglected. Their trials have stalled, either because researchers could not find enough funding or enough patients to participate. At the same time, a few drugs have received sustained investment despite disappointing results. There is now a wealth of evidence that the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine did not work against COVID. And yet there are still 179 clinical trials with 169,370 patients in which at least some are receiving the drugs, according to the COVID Registry of Off-label & New Agents at the University of Pennsylvania. And the federal government funneled tens of millions of dollars into an expanded access program for convalescent plasma, infusing almost 100,000 COVID patients before there was any robust evidence that it worked. In January, those trials revealed that, at least for hospitalized patients, it does not. The lack of centralized coordination meant that many trials for COVID antivirals were doomed from the start — too small and poorly designed to provide useful data, according to Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. If the government had instead set up an organized network of hospitals to carry out large trials and quickly share data, researchers would have many more answers now. New antiviral drugs might help, but only now is the National Institutes of Health putting together a major initiative to develop them, meaning they will not be ready in time to fight the current pandemic. “This effort will be unlikely to provide therapeutics in 2021,” Dr. Francis Collins, head of the NIH, said in a statement. “If there is a COVID-24 or COVID-30 coming, we want to be prepared.”
Glad you read it. However, you seemed to have missed the central point (and a point that I made in my original, yet to be published comment, efforts were made independent of the CDC NIH, but because they were too small or for other reasons they were not accepted. Had the government spent as much effort toward early treatment as an interdiction that has been only partially successful, we might well have saved lives and been prepared now.
Rather than work with and coordinate treatment research, the government actively discouraged or vilified attempts in order to push its interdiction strategy. Oddly, the government did allow Remdesivir which has turned out to be both toxic and generally ineffective.
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210716/large-remdesivir-study-finds-no-covid-19-survival-benefit
One might ask why Remdesivir was so enthusiastically embraced by the government and other treatments used in other countries were perfunctorily rejected.
Wow – you must be THE EXPERT at scientific research here. Then why do you have your wife use utter junk science? You know – she may one day figure out what an uncaring boob she is married to. Good luck with the divorce proceedings.
“other treatments used in other countries were perfunctorily rejected”.
And what were these wonderful other treatments? I bet you learned all about them watching Tucker Carlson!
Stryker claims that Palin’s “natural immunity” was protecting others in the restaurant at the very moment she was once again literally infected with Covid.
I swear, I don’t know how these people’s brains work.
There you go again making things up. I never said Palin’s natural immunity was protecting people from her infection. I said that being outside she posed low risk.
Speaking of natural immunity, you claimed that it’s not as good as being vaccinated. I gave you three studies to the contrary. Where are your studies? Or did you make that up too?
You babble BS so much that one needs a program to keep up with your lies. Stay out of my city as I do not trust a word you say and I think I have the right not to be infected by you or any of your self centered lying clients.
“I gave you three studies to the contrary.”
Barkley already nailed you on citing outdated and non-peered review studies. You called one that was published a year ago “recent”. Dude – your lies are very transparent. And you fancy yourself to be some big shot lawyer!
” I said that being outside she posed low risk.”
You repeat this lie? On the Saturday where she dined, it was very cold in NYC. I seriously doubt anyone was dining outdoors. Come on Rick – you lying has become very transparent. And we thought you were one of those really clever lawyers!
And yea – you did keep brining up your natural immunity canard. Get your lies straight.
Just to put pgl and Barkley into low orbit, I offer this analysis by the Office of National Statistics in England.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/covid19deathsandautopsiesfeb2020todec2021
Feel free to roam around the country.
Wait – your document failed to mention all those miracle treatments you claimed were being used abroad but not here. Of course it did not as they do not exist. As usual you cannot back up another one of your claims as you once again LIED. How much is Tucker Carlson paying you for this garbage?
Bruce,
I confess that I have no idea why this report you linked to about the age distribution of Covid deaths in Wales over recent months should put me “into low orbit.” Seems completely uninteresting and to be expected. Older people dying more than younger ones? Right. I think we already knew that.
You were spouting nonsense above about monoclonal antibodies, but I saw nothing about that or any other meds or vaxxes or erstwhile cures, just numbers of dead people by age. Again, what is the point of this and why would either pgl or I somehow go into orbit over this completely well known and obvious data?
“Older people dying more than younger ones? Right. I think we already knew that.”
Bruce Hall used to tell us the younger ones would not die at all from COVID-19. I guess he will now deny saying what he clearly said back in the day. He has less integrity than even Rick Stryker.
Aww, Barkley, I had you pegged as one of the insightful ones. The data are not important for the demographic stratification, but rather for the absolute numbers out of the total reported “COVID” deaths.
Palin posed less risk? Are you nuts! She was literally infected with Covid at the time that she was dining indoors, unvaccinated, in violation of the law. She dined Saturday night and on Monday morning revealed that she tested positive when required by the court. That she may or may not have not known she was infected at the time is why there is a vaccination law to protect others.
And then she went back to the same restaurant, this time with full knowledge of her infection, again in defiance of quarantine rules.
She’s a bloody monster. A public menace who has no respect for the law nor regard for human life.
She dined indoors? The RICK just said she said outdoors. And of course the RICK never lies – right?
First time was indoors, in violation of vaccination mandate. The second time, at the same restaurant, was outdoors after the court made public her positive test, but in violation of the quarantine rules. Would you want be the the server at her table knowing for a fact that she was infected with Covid and unmasked, even outdoors?
By the way, when are you going to apologize to Jay Inslee for your lying about Lamay’s religious exemption. And it was a flat out lie, a blatant lie. It seems to be a habit with you.
https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1487814143973470208:
“I would rather be governed by 100 Canadian truckers than the entire Harvard University faculty”
and one of the replies:
“Your pantry would be well stocked!”
But, as we know, Jeff The Hahvahd guy does not read comments. Too busy sitting on his throne in Cambridge, Mass.
Manfred: Well, that’s quite a witty quote. Quite fresh too!
Oh, hi Menzie!
You talk to me again! That is fantastic!
Welcome back. I have to say, I kind of missed you….
Manfred,
This looks like a redo of an old one I think due to William F. Buckley about how he would rather be governed by a random draw of people from the phone book than a group of faculty from Yale University, which he attended. I guess this one has the virtue of being able to wisecrack about people being stocked up with food.
I suspect that Menzie’s reply about “fresh quote” was made with this rather famous old wisecrack by Buckley in mind, which was made over a half century ago.
As it is, I am unclear what this was about. Do you have any specific comments on anything Jeffrey wrote here? Or is all you have to say this ultimately pretty silly comment about Harvard faculty members? This was indeed a well thought-out post, but the lengthy commentary has managed to get pretty far away from it. I can understand that he might not have bothered to follow all this after some point. And this vacuous remark by you is certainly not worth being responded to by him, although some of us can point out that it is indeed just vacuous, and merely a half-baked takeoff on a much older similar such remark.
Manfred,
This last Anonymous was me, Barkley Rosser. Sorry I did not get my name in there properly. Would not want to be confused with our latest Anonymous, who seems to follow details of the US oil industry reasonably well, but who somehow thinks that Ukrainians are grateful for the mass famine imposed on them by Stalin and Khrushchev, and so should just be overjoyed at the chance of being conquered by Russia.
Manfred,
I did not get the Buckley quote precisely right. It was more like “I would rather be ruled by the first 100 names in the New Haven telephone directory than by 100 Yale faculty members.”
Anyway, your Canadian truckers may at least deliver food, but your comment says not a thing about anything Frankel actually wrote here.
Now the food workers at Yale went on strike in the 1970’s and literally shut the campus down. So maybe Canadian truckers could have come in handy back then. BTW Buckley was appalled that the Yale economics department taught Keynesian economics. He was always a lot like Donald Luskin.